I seek the Lord's help. Happy
birthday to Sam. How old? 80 what? Just mess with me. 76? No, 75. 76 in November. You're older
than I am. I'm still a pooper compared to
you. Happy birthday this week. Next week, I think. Oh, OK. Well, we're sorry about
that. She thought that she had it down
for next week. Happy birthday to you too, Wanda.
Oh, he's going to put yours down in next week's bulletin. I see. I see. All right. Andy Preliest,
Joe Shockley, and also Casey Bailey. Well, you don't know her. She's
our lady that cuts our hair. Mine and Julie's and Debbie's.
She's got a lot of ailments. Tremendous amount of ailments.
She's got Crohn's. She's got lupus. Bone, bone. Cancer possibility. Remember her. Remember her. She's
a young woman. Sweet lady. Sweet lady. Remember
her. Remember her. Her name is Casey Baker. Remember
her. Any prayers if you will. Any other prayer requests? Sharon is going to have to get
some rocks out of the driveway and put it in her pocket so she
won't blow away. She's on a new drug for her diabetes,
right? And it's pulling off the pounds
like crazy. Continue to remember those folks
in prayer. Let's begin our worship service
this morning with hymn number 17, Come Thou Fount of Every
Blessing. ? Sing of the fount of every blessing
? ? Tune to my heart to sing thy praises ? ? Streams of mercy
never ceasing ? ? Call for songs of loudest praise ? ? Teach me
some of the melodies of thy praise ? Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum
Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum
Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum
Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum- ? I could pleasure Saint St. Jude ? ? From my private home
? ? Jesus saw me in a stranger ? ? On one road, oh Lord, oh
Lord ? ? He did rescue me from danger ? ? Interposed his gracious
blood ? O day shall be better, daily I am constrained to thee. Let back thy foolishness, like
a peter pipe I'm wandering. Here's my heart. Take and seal it for thy courts
above. One more announcement. Next Sunday
is the last Sunday of the month, so we'll be having the board's
table and dinner, but no, we have the noon service. The board's
table and table after the morning service is next Sunday, last
Sunday of the month. Okay, let's turn in our Bibles
to John chapter 4. Gospel according to John chapter
4. You're familiar with this, the
Lord must need to go to Samaria and meet this woman by the well,
confronts her with the truth about her life, tells her that
he has water, that if she drinks it, she'll never thirst again.
And after he confronts her about her five husbands, verse 18, the woman says to the Lord, Sir,
I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this
mountain, and he say, in Jerusalem there is a place where men ought
to worship. Jesus said, so woman, believe
me, the hour cometh when he shall neither in this mountain nor
yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship, you know
not what. We know what we worship for salvation
is of the Lord. For the hour hath come, and now
he is with true worshipers, shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Let's pray. Our Father, we bless
you and thank you through Jesus Christ our Lord. for the great
grace that was necessary to save the ruined, wretched sinners
who in themselves had no ability, no interest, not caring for the
things of God, who were lost and hopeless and
helpless in this world, who are described in this book as being
blind and lame, haught, infirm, sick, sinful, wretched, and ruined. What grace was necessary to save
such as this? We know that grace came from
heaven, came down here, took upon himself the form of a man
in the fashion of a servant, was obedient to the death of
the cross, whereby you have been highly exalted to him and given
him a name above every name. In fact, it is the only name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. That
great grace bestowed and manifested in Jesus Christ and his work
and shed abroad in the hearts of your children, your elect,
your chosen. We thank you, Father, that we
can even as sinners saved by grace consider these things and
dwell upon them, to meditate upon them, and chew them as cud,
and cough them up and chew them again. We thank you, Father,
for your word, for the beauty of it, the glory of it, for the
honesty and integrity of it. We are thankful that as the world
seems to be fading away and all around, it always seems to decay,
that there is something that lives and abides forever. And
it is your blessed word, whereby the gospel is preached unto us.
Father, we pray for those who are sick, those who have gone
through trials and tribulations, our lowest ever case. We ask,
Lord, to be with them, comfort them in Jesus Christ. Help us now to do as our Lord
has said in this passage, to worship you in spirit and in
truth. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. In number 45, these servants
of God, your pastor proclaim. ? These servants of God, your
pastor proclaim ? The place of the crown is His
wonderful name. The victorious path of Jesus'
story, His kingdom is glorious, He rules over all. Oh, I, oh, I need to say that
still in his presence we have a great congregation. His triumphs I'll see, for my
life's salvation to Jesus I'll be. Salvation to God, who sits
on the throne, and on the high of heaven under the sun. The praises of Jesus the angels
proclaim, They face His crucifixion, they
face the storm and He is right. I'm gonna let Sam and Steve,
y'all see y'all this morning, please. Let's pray. Father, again we
approach in the name of Jesus Christ. We ask, Father, that
which you have given us which rightfully belongs to you. Let
us do so with joy and thanksgiving in our hearts. We pray in Christ's
name. Amen. Amen. So, Now these words that our Lord speaks
to this woman at the well is her response or his response
after she had been confronted with her sin. It has not been
revealed that the one that speaks to her is the Messiah, but in
the next verse or so, he does. Because after he tells her about
true worship, she says, well, you know, when the Messiah comes,
he'll tell us these things. And our Lord used that great
identification of himself. He said, he that's the one that
speaks to you, I am. Ego, I may. I am. I am that I
am. And she's been made to feel and
understand her sin, and it's become uncomfortable for her
to be confronted with the fact that she's been married five
times to the guy she's living with right now she's not married
to. And she acts in a manner that's common to folks who have
been disclosed to what they are, and there's no denying the fact
when confronted with it. The Lord's arrows are swift,
and they've hit the mark, And her response is a common and
natural response. When folks who don't know Christ
are made to confront their evil ways, they immediately come up
with doting religious questions. What they do is how they react.
Even a refuge of lies is still a refuge to lost men and women. Religion is a safe haven of the
lost. And when the word of the Lord
comes home to roost, the conscience gets in high gear. The best way
to alter the course of the truth is to enter into religious debate,
denominational inquiries, and sacred traditions. Such behavior
does not surprise us. It is the way of the world. Here
was an opportunity to own her guilt and confess her sin and
her need. But instead of suing for mercy,
instead of asking for forgiveness, she sets about to enter a convenient
debate, thinking to gain some ground with the master. She assumed
he was a Jew. She said that. He might enjoy
a lower religious debate on the difference between the worship
of the Jews and the worship of the Samaritans, she thought.
There's nothing so repulsive and obnoxious to the flesh as
spiritual truth. The natural mind seeks the easiest
way possible to avoid the truth. Instead of dealing with the Word
of God, beautiful minds run to questions about places they think
are holy. times that they have observed
as sacred, holy days and religious deeds, righteous deeds and long-held
customs and prophetic schemes. You tell somebody the truth about
God, it won't be long before they start talking about something
else. And it'll usually be a religious topic. men and women are willing
to debate and discuss almost any religious subject just as
long as they don't have to confront their own depravity, their own
sin and rebellion against God. Imagine we're surprised when
we're told that those things meant nothing at all. You say
you worship under Jerusalem. We say we worship under the mountains.
That don't mean anything. That don't mean anything. Christ
has come and he is useless in our religions and completely
insignificant than they are yet today. Think of what must be
going through your mind when the Lord has told you the hour
has come again and now is when all external practice of religion,
all the holy days, the Sabbath keeping, the sacrifice, the priests,
the laws, the ceremonies of Israel and the temple itself will no
longer exist. They'll be replaced by true spiritual
worship. Men do not like it when their
empty hopes are dashed in their sacred fences and counted as
nothing. All true worship is spiritual. All carnal legal ceremonial
worship is idolatry and to be discounted altogether. Nobody
wants to be discounted. But everything apart from spiritual
worship of Jesus Christ, everything apart from true understanding
of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to be discounted. Now I am
not one who wants to do away with all religions. Religion, even false religion,
has had somewhat of a good effect on society through the years.
And I'm thankful for that. For many years he kept people
in check and kind of taught them about morality and things like
that and law keeping and law abiding citizens and such and
I'm glad for that. But all that good works and all
those good things count nothing in the matter of salvation. They
just don't. Let it be realized. The two verses
of the Old Testament. And now is when true worshipers
shall worship the Father in spirit. and in truth, for the Father
seeketh such to worship Him, God in spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Now two things are clearly set
forth here. The first and most important
is that worship is essential. There is no worship of God where
there is no worship of God. There is no spiritual life. There
is no knowledge of God and no salvation. All who are born of
God are worshipers of God. Paul said, we are the circumcision,
and he described the circumcision this way. Who worship God in
the Spirit. That's the first thing he said.
Who worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no conflicts in the flesh, in Philippians 3. We worship
God. We're the circumcision. We're
the people of God. In verse 23, God is a spirit. And they that worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth. Notice the word must. This matter of worship is not
optional. There is no choice, no decision
to make. The message carries with it great
gravity because there is very little true worship in this day.
Worship of God is the most important, most urgent, highest, noblest,
most glorious aspiration of a human being can have. There's nothing
greater than that on the face of the earth. Worshiping God.
Worship is the creature grabbing greatness and praise to Christ,
his creator. However, most of what passes
for worship these days is anything but worship. What is called worship
today is intended for the pleasure, entertainment, and indulgence
of the flesh, rather than the celebration of God's excellence
and praise. I've been to many services recently
where a preacher kept saying, amen, amen, amen. I've tried
to get people to say amen. Nobody said amen, but he said
it and nobody else would. And he talked about shouting
and carrying on. Well, I've been to shouting places.
I've been to places where preachers shout and people shout. And most
of the time when I get in situations, I'll sit in the back and watch
people because I like to watch people. And people will shout
real big and look around and see who's going to shout bigger
than they are. And it's just a shout. It's just a shout. It
ain't nothing. They call that worship. They
call that worship. The services that are called
worship, they are even more vile than the religious exercises
of days gone by. What is called contemporary worship,
they are better and more idolatry. because this is so we as believers
need to know and understand what God declares to be worship because
He says what it is in the scripture. The only one who can define and
describe what to worship is the one who we must worship and the
one who is to be worshipped. We would worship God if we must
worship Him the way He says to worship Him, not some other invention
of man. In this passage, our Lord Jesus
Christ teaches us five things about this wondrous necessary,
absolutely necessary thing called worship. First our Lord distinguishes
between true worship and false worship. He makes the distinction
when this woman began to hope about worship, our Lord immediately
shut her down. He told her that she did not
know anything about the matter of worship. She said, you worship,
you know not what. You worship, you don't know what.
In other words, you don't have any idea at all what worship
is. You don't have any idea about
worship. This is no small thing because
he's also stating that the Jews know nothing about worship also. He said, she said, you say we
worship in this mountain, you say we worship in Jerusalem,
they don't know anything either. They don't know anything either. Old Testament word, carnal, typical,
outward ordinances of divine service. But there were inward
truths that were generally disregarded. Read Isaiah, chapter 1. Find
out where God had taken me, where his people were. He said, you
know, the more I judge you, the more you rebel. You're sick from
the top of your head to the sole of your feet. He said, I won't
have any more of your sacrifices and prayers. Don't pray to me.
I'm not going to ask. I'm going to turn my back on
you. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of these
feasts. These were feasts that he had
ordained, but the manner in which they were doing them, and the
heart in which they were doing them, God said there's nothing
to them. This is essential that we learn
about true worship. Outward religious work, ritual,
ceremony, formality, or service is not worship. It's not worship. Our religious religion is not
worship. This was the paramount aspect
of our Lord's Doctrine and Sermon on the Mount. He declared that
we must carefully avoid being satisfied with or in any way
making a show of religious service. We must be dissatisfied with
that if it's never on it. Remember old Ralph Garner saying
one time to a fellow, And he said, don't you think you ought
to thank the Lord for that? And he said, how you know I didn't?
How you know I didn't? His fellow thought that by bowing
his head and people seeing him bow his head, that made him a
Christian. He thought that himself that
I've done something that makes people normal Christians. Listen,
nobody's going to know you're a child of God. You tell them
you're a child of God, they don't even know it then. Outward things
don't matter. he declared that we must carefully
avoid being satisfied in any way making religious services.
On the mountain he said, when you give, give your arms. He said
don't do it in front of people. Don't let your left hand know
what you're doing. Give your arms secretly. Give your money,
your gifts, secretly. God will know it, and you will
know it, and that's all the people that needs to know it. He said,
if you give it so men will see you give it, you have your reward.
You got what you asked for. It ain't gonna make you a fine
fella. He said, and when you pray, he
said, don't pray out in public. He said, go to the closet and
pray with you and God. He said, so nobody will know
whether you've been praying or not. He said, the Pharisees,
they made large, long prayers in public, but they despised
the God who made them. He said, when you fast, when
you fast, don't fast and tell somebody about it. Don't tell
somebody about it. Why would anybody tell somebody
if they've been fasting? to make people believe they're
a religious person. He said, don't tell anybody.
And he said, not only that, he said, don't get the sad catacombs
and walk around like you're starving to death and your hair's not
combed and you ain't shaved. He said, after you fast, go into
a basin of water and wash your face and hands and put on a new
set of clothes and come out looking like nothing's been going on.
Why do you do that? So nobody knows you fasted, because
if people know you're doing that, it's because you let them know
you're doing that, and that means you did it so you'd be recognized
as a man. Religious efforts to openly display
religiousness are nothing. Prayer is done in secret, not
before men. Giving is done privately, not
ostentatiously. Fasting is done without anyone
being aware of it, except you and the Lord. True worship encompasses
a familial relationship with God. Our Lord Jesus introduces
a never before spoken aspect of worship in the Old Testament. He talks about men on earth worshiping
the living God as their Father. They that worship the Father.
Think about that. In the Old Testament, the Lord
was honored as an idol of the Lord. He was revered as Jehovah. He was praised as El Shaddai
and Elohim. But no one ever even considered
bowing down at His feet and addressing Him as our Father, which aren't
in Heaven. You don't find that in the Old Testament. Nobody thought about that until
the Lord of Heaven, Jesus Christ, taught us to pray in that manner.
Our Father, which art in heaven. Our Lord has given us access
to the house of the Father, access that no one imagined before He
came into this world. We have access to the grace of
His hand. We have access to the Holy of
Holies. through his flesh, through what he did. Through what he
did according to Hebrews chapter 10. We have received the spirit
of adoption as sons. That's what Romans 8, 14 through
17 says. We're not as strangers to God. We've received the spirit of
adoption whereby we cry unto God, the maker of ruler and sustainer
of this universe, Abba, Abba, Father, Papa, Papa, That's a
familial relationship with God. As believers, we've been given
the privilege, the authority, and the right to be called, and
to call ourselves the sons of God. Think of that. We worship the Lord as our sovereign,
our creator, our lawgiver, our judge, without most reverence,
but we also worship Him as our Father. Behold, what manner of
love is this, that we should become the sons of God? And we
are now the sons of God. That's what John says in 1 John
3. We sing this song, sons we are,
by God's election, you and Jesus Christ believe, by eternal destination,
sovereign grace we now receive, pause my soul, adore and wonder,
ask oh why such love to me? Grace that's put me in the number
of our Savior's family. That's what it is. A familiar
relationship. Fairly true worship is a work
of grace. The words of our Lord make that
clear, that those who worship God in spirit and in truth are
those whom God has sought out and caused to worship in my grace. Our Lord, the Father seeketh. such to worship Him. This intimates
that a man would never truly worship God if he were not sought
of God, or sought by God, and taught by His grace to worship
Him in spirit and in truth. David says, Blessed is the man
whom God chooses. Psalm 65, verse 4. Blessed is
the man whom God chooses and causes us to approach unto Thee. He'll be satisfied. In other
words, worship is not something man does for God, it is something
God works in man by His grace. It is the work of God's Spirit
in us, turning us to God. Worship prepare not things which
arise from the hearts of men naturally, but things brought
in by the grace of Almighty God. If we come here to worship God,
it's because He's put it in our hearts to do so. That's why we
do it. That's why we do it. Have you ever thought about buying
a wine or whatever? You get up in the morning, you
make yourselves a soup, you put on your clothes, you come here.
Just tradition, something new. I mean, you can stay at home
and watch TV, watch a ball game or something. Why do you do that? Because God's put it in your
heart to do it. when you don't do it, when you
can't make it, when you want to make it, you feel horrible,
don't you? It ain't that you feel extra sinful or something,
you think, I'm missing. I'm missing. I'm missing. I'm missing. Gathering with my
brothers and sisters in Christ and worshiping. I want to be
there. I want to be there. David said,
as the heart passed after the water broke, so passed my soul
after thee, O my God. I long to be in the house of
the Lord. Fourthly, worship is spiritual
worship. I feel as if I'm casting my tiny
bark into a vast ocean here. Two English words make up the
word worship. They are worth and ship. Worship is describing
God, his true worth. This can only be done in spirit,
in our hearts. The Greek word for worship is
proskuneo. Translated worship means to kiss
the hand. Remember over in Psalm 2, when
God sends his king on Zion's hill, he says, kiss the sun,
lest ye be angry. It means to kiss the hand, but
there's a suggestion in the Greek language, it's like a dog licking
his master's hand. This is worship. All these things
suggest an attitude of the inward man, something hearty and spiritual.
Our Lord is telling us that there is no true worship except that
which takes place in the heart. Worship is not a physical bodily
function. We must not mistake action for
worship. Paul said bodily exercise is
the profit of the little. Worship is not an emotional,
sentimental thing, though it might involve weeping and laughing
both. It is not a feeling. Worship is a spiritual, mental,
intelligent work of the heart and mind of a child of God. And
this means no images for sure. We would worship God, we discounted
this, and now all religious paraphernalia and contraband crosses, symbols,
statues, pictures, physical representations of Jesus, spiritual worship is
a singular, plain, unadorned worship. The Lord had something
to say. Remember that? The children of Israel said,
our soul loatheth this light bread. They were talking about
the manna, which was a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. They said, we hate this
manna. We hate it. We hate it. We hate it. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's
here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here.
It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's
here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here.
It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here.
It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here.
It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here.
It's here. It's here. It's here. It's here. It's People were dying,
dying. And they cried out to Moses,
oh, beseech the Lord to help us. The Lord said, raise up a
serpent, a brazen serpent out of brass and raisin on a pole.
And those who were bitten, only those who were bitten were told
to look. And when they looked, they were
healed. Whatever happened to that brazen
serpent? They took that bad boy down. They stuck it in a temple
somewhere. And they started worshiping it.
Hezekiah come along. Why do you worship that thing?
God is worshiping the Spirit. Why do you worship that thing?
That's the Pope that saved us. He saved us from dying from vipers
bites. You know what Hezekiah said? He's just a piece of grass. That's all it is. And He grounded
it up to powder and cast it to the winds. Just a piece of grass. All worship of the Father is
centered in the Son. Christ is our altar and our sacrifice. Christ's blood is Christ is our bread, Christ is
our substitution, Christ is our incense, Christ is our ark of
testimony and mercy seat, Christ is our Passover, Christ is our
Great High Priest, Christ is God with us, worshiping God in
His Spirit, His Spirit is calling upon Him with a heart of trust
in His dear Son. This is what we do. That's what
Paul said to the Roman Church in Romans 10, verse 9. He said, if you will confess
with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in thine
heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. That doesn't
mean by believing he becomes righteous. He believes, too,
of the righteousness of God, which is Jesus Christ. And with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture
sayeth, he that believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For
there is no difference between you and the same Lord over all,
to all men that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord, shall be saved. It's calling upon him
in the heart, trusting in him, believing. Spirit and truth. Those things
are application of a person. when the Lord was about to be
crucified and told his disciples that he was no longer going to
be with them. He was going to heaven. He was going to ascend
to the high place and sit at the right hand of the Father
after he finished the work of salvation. He said, I'll leave you another
comforter. I'll leave you the Spirit, my
Spirit. He said later in the same passage,
when I come to you. So when we talk about the Spirit,
we're talking about Jesus Christ. He's the only way we know Jesus
Christ, by His Spirit teaching us through the Scriptures. And
in that passage, He says, when the Spirit does come, when He
comes, when I leave, go to heaven, the intercede for you there.
When the Spirit I leave behind, my Spirit is with you, He will
take the things of Christ and show them unto you. Who is Jesus
Christ? He's the way, the truth, and the life. He's the truth. So if we're going to worship
God in the Spirit in the truth, we're going to worship Him by
the Spirit in Jesus Christ. That's the only way it's done.
Why is this singular spiritual worship such a rare thing? Fallen
man wants a God he can see and feel and touch, a God he can
show to others. I remember many years ago, a
couple of years ago, she had a picture, a so-called picture
of Jesus hanging on the wall. We went to see him. And I looked
up and I said, who's that? Who's that? Who's that? We all
asked that. We'd seen the picture. Who's
that? Who's that? All the men want that. They want
to have a picture. They want to have a cross on
the wall. If all a man wants from God,
he can impress and obligate by his gifts and works. Think of
Cain. Abel brought the sacrifice of
God in order to blood sacrifice in order to approach God. Cain brought the labor of his
hands. He didn't bring junk. When Fred brings me stuff out
of his garden, he don't bring me the stuff that God left me
to produce. came to bring to God his junk
he brought the very best vegetables he had grown the very best things
he had made with his hands he brought them on a tray and offered
them to God because he loved God in his own way and he wanted
to impress God and thank God and so he said this is what I've
done for you God said I reject you get out of here he did what was right in man's
eyes, but in the ways of death, he was rejected. You don't obligate
God to do something for you because you do something for Him. In
fact, anything you do for Him, you do for Him because He's already
done something for you. it's far easier to go through
a form, a ceremony, a ritual, a liturgy, than it is to worship
God in spirit. We worship God in spirit, we
must acknowledge and confess and seek the forgiveness of our
sins. In fact, everything we do in the church of the living
God is a confession of sin and worship. It's impossible to have
traffic in spiritual worship. No icon to sell, no priest to
serve, no holy places to reverence, no rewards to win or lose. If we would worship God, we must
worship Him in spirit and in truth. Worshipping God in truth
means that we must worship Him truthfully with sincerity, honesty,
and uprightness. To worship in truth is to worship
without deception. We cannot worship God Until we come clean with Him. Strip off all the false faces,
shuck our pretense. That must be done. Whether in
public assembly of God's saints, or in the still and darkness
of night upon our beds. If we would worship God, we must
be deliberately naked before Him. Stripped of all things. Also, if we were to worship God,
we must worship Him according to revealed truth. We must worship Him according
to the revealed truth. God's Word is truth. Christ is
the way, the truth, and the life. This means that if we worship
God, we must worship Him, confessing our sins like the publican, our
total depravity, trusting Christ's blood and righteousness as our
substitute. And here's the wonder. such to worship Him. He seeketh such to worship Him. That's a wonderful thing. True
worship is spiritual worship. So how do you do that? You do it by hearing the Word
of God, believing the Lord Jesus Christ and trusting Him. without
any external things happening, it would cause someone to think
you're worshiping God in your heart, with your mind, in spirit
and in truth. The Lord said to worship in the
temple, worship on the mountain, worship in the heart and in the
mind of the believer, in spirit and in truth. Father, bless us
to understand and pray in Christ's name. Thank you.